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Thursday, January 17, 2013

Here's why you should NEVER use your real name on Cross Currents

A continuation of the previous posts

Cross Currents says:

...anonymity shields these writers from self-reflection, humility, and careful judgment.

Using a fake name also forces the creator of Cross Currents to actually consider your arguments. If you give him your real name, he might take the short cut of undermining your points based on biographical factoids he found on the Internet. Think I'm kidding? Unfortunately, this actually happened when someone called "Avi Burstein" attempted to join a discussion about Haredi culture:

Avi Burstein January 7, 2013 at 11:02 pm
R’ Menken, unfortunately, your portrayal of how “normal” chareidi people react would be disputed by many people. In my experience, many, probably the vast majority, of “normal” chareidim adopt whatever position they are told is the “Torah True” one to believe. And so, when the people who are supposed to lead the community choose to remain silent, they are allowing the extremists to shape the public opinion, and thereby allow for the problematic view to gain an ever greater grip upon the community. If people like this rav would actually speak up, voice his opinion, and speak out against the extremist view, it would weaken the extremists hold on the community significantly. And it would bring many people who are on the fence to that way of seeing the issue

But instead of actually addressing the claims, his opponent went to Google and tried to demonstrate that Burstein was pretending to knowledge he didn't posses:

Yaakov MenkenJanuary 8, 2013 at 11:04 am
Because Avi Burstein uses his real name, it takes only a moment to learn that Avi was born at roughly the same time that I entered the charedi community, and attended YU. From his description of charedi sociology, it seems to me that he has minimal true familiarity with it, but was fed roughly the same things that my Modern Orthodox college peers believed.

Let's document the atrocities:

(1) How can we be sure that the man who wrote the original comment is actually named "Avi Burstein?" Perhaps "Avi Burstein" is a pseudonym.

(2) The counterargument was made against Burstein's background rather than against the points he actually raised. Such ad hominen arguments are frowned upon in polite society, and a fool proof way to avoid them is to insist on pseudonyms. This exchange cited above suggests one of the reasons Cross Currents wants its readers to use their real names is so that such fallacious attacks remain available to the blog's writers.

(3) Does it need to said that charedim attend YU, and YU graduates sometimes join charedi communities? The mere fact that Burstein attended YU does not preclude him from knowing a thing or two about Charedim.

(4) Leaving all of this aside, how does Yaakov Mencken know he got the right guy? Might there be more than one "Avi Burstein" in the world?

And guess what:

Avi BursteinJanuary 8, 2013 at 1:16 pm
By the way, I never attended YU. You’re mixing me up with someone else. In case you didn’t know this, sometimes two different people have the same name.

The takeaway seems obvious, so be forewarned: If you're interested in a real discussion of ideas don't use your real name on Cross Currents!

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Quotes

רֹאשׁ דְּבָרְךָ אֱמֶת קוֹרֵא מֵרֹאשׁ דּוֹר וָדוֹר עַם דּוֹרֶשְׁךָ דְּרֹשׁ
Your chief word is "truth"; You've called it out since the beginning. In each generation people interpret You [for themselves] and find [their own] meaning.

You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you odd. -Flannery O'Connor

“When in the afterglow of religious insight I can see a way that is good for all humans as it is for me—I will know it is His way.” - R. Abraham Joshua Heschel

I don't accept at all the quite popular argument that the press is responsible for the monarchy's recent troubles. The monarchy's responsible for the monarchy's recent troubles. To blame the press is the old thing of blaming the messenger for the message. -Anthony Holden

Said behind my back

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"He's witty. He's funny. He appreciates the ridiculous in life, and has no qualms about telling you when he thinks that you're being a moron" [Cara]

" I'm pretty sure [DovBear] is a really great guy who just wants to be able to ask questions and talk about things without the fear of someone claiming he's off the derech or on his way there." [Chaviva]